


Red Dwarf Kink Meme Fills

by falsteloj



Category: Red Dwarf
Genre: 69 (Sex Position), British Comedy, Dirty Dancing, First Time, Friends to Lovers, Holography, IN SPACE!, Kink Meme, Loss of Virginity, M/M, Middle Aged Virgins, One Shot Collection, Outer Space, Romance, Self Confidence Issues, Self-Esteem Issues, Spanking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-24
Updated: 2014-07-08
Packaged: 2018-01-26 09:33:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 17,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1683560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/falsteloj/pseuds/falsteloj
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What it says on the tin. (Well, in the title...)</p><p>1. '69'<br/>2. 'The first time Rimmer gets to top.'<br/>3. 'Lister meets Rimmer for the first time and thinks he's a bit of alright - if only he'd stop talking.'<br/>4. 'Remake of Rimmer's first/only sexual liaison - it was Lister who got hit in the head.'<br/>5. Yvonne McGruder - Lister wants all the sordid details.<br/>6. 'Lister doing suggestive things with the fruit in "Camille".'<br/>7. Rimmer can't get out of a messy job.<br/>8. 'Spanking. It's not usually Lister's thing, but it's what Rimmer wants.'<br/>9. 'Rimmer/Lister, set in the 'Dad' AU.'<br/>10. 'I just want Rimmer getting done by Lister, and loving it.'<br/>11. Dirty Dancing AU.<br/>12. Overstimulation - Lister gets trapped in the AR machine.</p><p>My other Red Dwarf stuff:<br/>★. <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/399264">(Being Dead) Not The Setback It Used To Be</a>. Rimmer's convinced he came back wrong. [T]<br/>★. <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/1829206">Ship's Summer</a>. Rimmer gets what he's always wanted. But it's Rimmer, so of course it isn't that simple. [T]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the prompt: '69'
> 
> Originally posted here: http://starbuggers.livejournal.com/317.html?thread=20797#t100413

Rimmer had always been wildly eager, shameless even in his desire to have Lister touch him. To have Lister sink to his knees and suck him, Rimmer’s long fingers twisted helplessly in his dreads, inexperience reducing him to wanton desperation.

At least the Rimmer who inhabited Lister’s late night bunk fantasies had been. Because this deep space enforced spell of celibacy aside, Lister was no novice. He knew how to interpret the signs, how to read between the lines, and no matter what Rimmer might say had once transpired between himself and Yvonne McGruder, the man was still a walking dictionary definition of blushing virgin.

It had twisted at something deep inside himself at times, when Rimmer wasn’t busy being a total smeghead, and Lister couldn’t help but imagine what it would be like to be the one who taught Rimmer to appreciate the finer things in life. To be the focus of all Rimmer’s pent up wanting, the one to witness the startled gasps and whimpers of somebody who had no idea their own body could make them feel so smegging amazing.

Luckily, for both his sanity and the safety of his person, in those early years such thoughts could be nothing but secret, deeply hidden fantasies. Rimmer couldn’t feel, and Lister couldn’t touch, not even by accident, and Rimmer was such a snivelling weasel besides the idea invariably lost most, if not all, its charm in the cold artificial light of ship’s morning.

But things changed. The brief glimpses of a decent human being slowly became a gaping 42” viewscreen into his soul, and by the time Legion enabled Rimmer’s switch to hardlight, it wasn’t just the carnal side of such relationships Lister wanted to introduce to the other man.

He wanted to teach Rimmer to trust, to have him lower his defences and whisper all his dreams and desires into the stillness of their darkened bunkroom. He wanted to kiss Rimmer, to stroke his thumb against the side of his hand, and see the tell-tale glimmer of love in hazel eyes even if Rimmer couldn’t quite manage to verbalise it.

When his chance came Lister determined not to waste it, spilling secrets and truths, watching the way Rimmer’s eyelids fluttered against flushed cheeks, even as he writhed under Lister’s careful administrations. Rimmer had simply stared at him in the morning, silent and uncertain, and it was Lister who initiated the kiss, self-satisfaction searing through him at the way Rimmer clung to his shoulders.

It was like all those secret fantasies becoming reality.

Except it wasn’t because no matter how he teased, how he lavished his attention, Rimmer failed to come apart beneath him. When he would have touched Rimmer caught his hand and turned the tables, when he would have tasted Rimmer pulled him into a kiss instead, twisting away from any action more intimate.

Lister resolved to be patient, to be understanding. Rimmer had no experience, and it wasn’t Rimmer’s fault the very thought made Lister’s skin burn as though he had caught fever.

In turn Rimmer reached for him, tentatively, undoing him so completely he begged Rimmer to let him reciprocate. To carry out all the dreams he had so long been harbouring. It must have dulled his higher senses, the excitement of it all, because it took entirely too long for him to realise Rimmer was still and unresponsive beneath him.

His worry must have been writ clear across his face, because when he shifted to look into Rimmer’s eyes, to brush the wayward locks of hair away from his forehead, Rimmer only met his gaze for a moment before turning his head away, eyes clenched tight.

“You don’t have to,” Rimmer eventually managed in response to Lister’s half frightened questioning. “You can’t enjoy it.”

It was then it hit him, his throat tightening even as he marvelled, not for the first time, at the true depth of Rimmer’s neuroses. Rimmer had pulled his own arms in close, as though to make himself smaller, and Lister shook his head, lost as to how best reassure a man who had almost lost the battle with a physical representation of his own sense of self-loathing.

“You drive me crazy,” Lister promised, settling for pressing kisses to Rimmer’s cheek and to his hairline, and wrapping his arm about him. “This isn’t about scratching some itch, you know. I love you.”

Rimmer stiffened, but Lister didn’t loosen his grip. Clung close until the tension left his frame, until Rimmer fell asleep, the furrow in his brow finally easing. Lister ignored the growing numbness in his arm and set his own mind to finding a solution.

It came to him not in the warmth of Rimmer’s bunk, or even in the relative privacy of their own room. Rather he was sat at the breakfast table eating toast when the idea assaulted him, fully formed, and if Kryten noticed anything suddenly amiss about his choking and blushing, he had either the tact or the sense of self preservation not to say anything.

Rimmer avoided him for the better part of the day, the ramrod straight posture and gratingly pompous attitude earning him sharp words from the Cat and Kryten alike, though Lister let Rimmer’s barbed comments slide. He recognised the display for what it was, marrow deep embarrassment.

He waited instead until they were alone in their bunkroom, Rimmer refusing to meet his gaze though the space was scarcely big enough for one person.

“I don’t really need to sleep,” Rimmer said finally, to fill the silence. “I’ll go if you think I should.”

Lister bit back the exasperated sigh to focus on letting his fingers trail up the sleeve of Rimmer’s jacket. “I’m never going to let you go,” Lister said, matter of factly, “so you never have to be afraid to tell me anything.”

“I wasn’t afraid,” Rimmer protested, though it was weak, and Lister chose to kiss him, before the debate could escalate.

Rimmer moaned, low in his throat, as the kiss deepened, the sound sparking across all of Lister’s nerve endings. Rimmer’s toungue touched his, first tentative, then impassioned, and Lister had to fight to concentrate on the plan, even as they fell onto the bunk, hands wandering frantically.

Lister pulled at Rimmer’s buttons, pushed his jacket and undershirt away, and groaned appreciatively when Rimmer tugged at his clothing, the flush creeping from his cheeks down his bared torso.

“I want you to suck me,” Lister breathed when they were both naked, and he could feel Rimmer’s response, as well as hear his quickened breathing and see the mottled flush spread still further, so that it looked painful. “Please, Rimmer.”

Rimmer had already proven he was more than adept at this task, the fact that it was _Rimmer_ more than making up for any deficiencies in technique owing to inexperience. Lister whined at the first cautious touch of lips, and he lost himself in the wet warmth of Rimmer’s mouth for a few moments before he had the presence of mind to continue with the scenario he had thought through so meticulously.

“Oh smeg,” he gasped, the flash of pride on Rimmer’s face enough to make his flailing grasp for Rimmer’s hips more desperate than it otherwise might have been. Rimmer resisted for a long moment, confused, and it was only Lister’s barely coherent plea of, “Please, oh, please, _fuck_ , let me. Please, Arn,” which succeeded in its goal of awkward maneuvering.

Lister had worried it would take much more, had feared that Rimmer wouldn’t let him at all. But perhaps his late night confession had had more of an impact than he’d dared imagine. Perhaps Rimmer was simply so far gone he no longer had the presence of mind to be embarrassed - or worse ashamed - of what they were doing.

Whatever the truth of the matter, Lister struggled for breath as Rimmer’s long legs settled either side of his head, the musky scent of him filling his nostrils.

He couldn’t hold back, had to touch Rimmer, hands stroking his thighs and his sides, pulling him closer until he felt the weight of him against his tongue. Lister let his one hand wander, rolling Rimmer’s already taut testicles carefully, and sucked greedily, his own body straining as the taste of pre-cum exploded across his taste buds.

Rimmer’s own movements were growing uncoordinated, distracted, and when Lister pulled him deeper still, Rimmer’s mouth left him entirely, his head resting heavily against the top of his thigh, a steady, desperate chant of “Lister” falling from his lips.

It was as powerfully affecting as all his long ago fantasies had promised, and Lister redoubled his efforts, the sensation of Rimmer losing himself combined with his startled cries enough to send Lister over the edge without any further stimulation.

"That was brutal," Lister said, when Rimmer was right way round and tucked up against his side again. "I mean," he tried, "that was amazing. Totally amazing."

Rimmer nodded against his chest, one arm winding around his torso, so that they fit better in the narrow bunk. Lister reached for Rimmer's hand, not caring how soppy or un-Ionian Rimmer might claim such an action to be. In response he _felt_ Rimmer smile against his skin, even as he said, yawning,

"I know. I love you too, Lister."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As ever, feel free to chat / hit me with prompts over on Tumblr [@serenwib](http://serenwib.tumblr.com/) or Twitter [@falsteloj](https://twitter.com/falsteloj). :)


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for the prompt: 'Rimmer/Lister, newish relationship, the first time Rimmer gets to fuck Lister.'
> 
> Originally posted here: http://starbuggers.livejournal.com/317.html?thread=86845#t86845

Rimmer liked to do things properly, thoroughly, and if the best way to achieve that was colour coded study timetables and long nights spent over a holopad, well, Rome wasn’t built in a nanosecond and all that smeg.

Lister, on the other hand, preferred to rely on instinct. Jumped straight in without looking, and still somehow succeeded in coming up smelling of roses.

It wasn’t as much of a sore point as it once had been, at least not since he had started going space-crazy and Dave ‘Gimboid’ Lister had evolved - in his mind - from slovenly unwashed goity git to someone Rimmer couldn’t think of without his stimulated stomach twisting all over the place.

Because Lister was the one who had thrown caution to the wind and initiated that first kiss, causing his own knees to turn to jelly and his light bee to whirr like some kind of demented spinning top.

It had been Lister again who had first pushed further, hands wandering within the cramped confines of the bottom bunk, whispering all manner of sentimental drivel Rimmer would have felt faintly sick at, had he been in his right mind. His mind being as helplessly ruined as it was, he had only gasped and groaned, and let Lister do as he would, begging for Lister not to stop, never to stop, though even in his deepest, darkest fantasies he had been unsure he could ever really bring himself to do so.

“I love you,” Lister told him only a few scant weeks later, like he had never had the presence of mind to think it to be a dirty secret, and Rimmer could only answer in the way his hands clutched at Lister’s shoulders, and the way he nodded, too eager, for Lister to chart him like he was one of his bloody precious machines, fingers finding places nobody had ever touched before.

The tables were turned now though, Rimmer thought, because his revision schedule had left him prepared, and that was the first rule of a space scout, along with not squealing on the favourites of your troop leader, not if you liked the arrangement your face was currently in.

Lister didn’t put up even a token protest, yanking his grotty T-shirt up and over his head before lying obediently on Rimmer’s bunk, grinning all across his smug gerbil face. It would have driven Rimmer crazy once, to have Lister sprawled over his clean bed sheets, and that at least hadn’t changed because his fingers fumbled on the buttons of his own jacket, even as he strove for a clear head and military precision.

“Just lie still,” he whispered, and to his own ears it sounded more of a plea rather than an order. Lister did as he was bid, all the same, and Rimmer was too aware of the flash of want the ready submission sent through him, even as he set about applying lips to the skin of Lister’s bared throat, just as his favourite manual had advised him to.

Lister, for his part, garbled words of encouragement, biting harshly at his own lip when Rimmer’s exploration took him further, lower. His fingers twisted tightly in Rimmer’s blanket, and when Rimmer cooed praise at him for keeping still, for being good - quite without reference to his carefully written study notes - Lister moaned low and rasped out half-desperate, half-awestruck,

“Rimmer, please. You’re killing me.”

He had probably fantasised about doing just that, lifetimes ago, before Lister’s loopiness had proved catching. In the present his cheeks only flamed with pride, the rest of his awareness too busy cataloguing the pitch of Lister’s whimpers, and the intensity of the shudders his - Rimmer’s - touch sent through him.

Lister broke the rules, inevitably, shifting his hips, encouraging him closer, and Rimmer was too far gone to chastise him for it. Was too lost in controlling his own breathing, in the sensation of his tongue slick against his own fingers even as Lister pushed back onto both of them, incoherent pleas of ‘more’ and ‘don’t stop’ and ‘smeg’ filling the bunkroom.

His own legs shook when he finally deemed it to be time to escalate things, and none of his late night reading had warned him of that eventuality. Lister didn’t seem to care, pulling him close and writhing thoroughly indecently, his earlier pledge to stay still little more than a memory.

Rimmer fought to keep his eyes open, the sight of Lister’s pained elation as mind blowing as the feel of Lister surrounding him.

“Fuck,” Lister ground out, and Rimmer lost the battle, surging forward in time with Lister’s frantic attempts to drive him deeper. His study guides hadn’t prepared him, not even the visual kind, and it took all his presence of mind just to remember to wrap a hand around Lister’s neglected cock, the guttural sound it earned him too much, entirely too much, so that it felt like there were stars exploding behind his eyelids.

“If that was an exam,” Lister panted in the aftermath, too knowing for all that Rimmer had been at pains to keep his research under wraps. Rimmer raised an eyebrow and Lister finished, grinning, “You’d have just passed with flying colours.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As ever, feel free to chat / hit me with prompts over on Tumblr [@serenwib](http://serenwib.tumblr.com/) or Twitter [@falsteloj](https://twitter.com/falsteloj). :)


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for the prompt: Rimmer/Lister, pre-series. Dave Lister is introduced to his new roommate and supervisor on Z shift and thinks "....*phwoar*." Then Rimmer starts talking... Extra points if he then begins thinking of ways he can make Rimmer forget how to talk.
> 
> Originally posted here: http://starbuggers.livejournal.com/317.html?thread=54077#t54077
> 
> The sap to sex ratio wasn't what I planned... Also pretty much ignores 'Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers'.

Mimas had its charms. Lister couldn’t think of any, not off the top of his head, but he was sure they were there, somewhere, all the same.

What it didn’t have, no matter what the Bliss Freaks down in the red light district might promise, was any means of getting a space bum down on his luck back to Earth. There were no proper jobs going, at least not for anyone lacking at least grade 3 proficiency in Esperanto, and the official answer to anything and everything was to check with your tour operator.

The Space Corps, on the other hand, offered a direct route home - with pay, crap though it might be - and it only took six months of staring at recruitment posters pledging that they could make something of him for Lister to give in and offer to sign away his liberty on the dotted line.

His Gran, still spoken of with reverence on the streets of Bootle, had always used to say that the only thing the Space Corps wanted to make out of lads like Lister was canon fodder. The bored looking bloke with the clipboard apparently had other ideas, and told him to report to Red Dwarf - now hulking rust-bucket but one time JMC flagship.

“I’m sure you’ll enjoy your time with us,” the grim faced welcome committee told him a few scant days later as they lead him through the ship’s uniformly grey corridors, tone putting Lister more in mind of a prison warden than a superior officer. “As we say here at the JMC, all our technicians are going places.”

Lister responded by throwing his kit bag at the newly closed doors of his quarters, and sinking to sit on the nearest bunk because the only place he was going was on a four and half year trip into deep space and back. It was no wonder the admissions officer had snapped him up.

He was just starting to really get into the self-pitying misery the situation deserved when the door opened, the ill packed contents of his kit bag spilling out into the corridor.

“What,” demanded the newcomer, “are you doing on my bunk?”

* * *

His first encounter with Rimmer made Lister think that perhaps he had lucked out, after all. Because while Rimmer wasn’t the kind of guy he would have gone for back in his days (day) at art college, he had a certain something about him. It was the dark eyes, Lister thought, and the neatness of his JMC issue uniform. It reminded him of the dashing heroes that filled the afternoon schedule of Channel 9, whenever his Gran had fancied a change from shouting abuse at her favourite presenters on the interplanetary pensioner network.

It wouldn’t be any hardship to spend four and a half years ogling at Rimmer’s backside, was what he was getting at.

Except Rimmer, he soon learned, wasn’t the type of guy to make it easy for anyone to fancy him.

He insisted on playing Hammond Organ Music as a rousing early morning wake up call, and his hobbies consisted of nothing more than gazing at pictures of 20th century telegraph poles and failing the Astro-navigation exam.

When he wasn’t busy with those he was constantly berating Lister for his attitude, for the state of his uniform, for having the audacity to simply breathe oxygen in the same room as him.

Lister complained about it to Petersen, Chen and Selby, who told him in turn that Rimmer was so intensely irritating the bloke he had been drafted to replace had thrown himself out of an airlock, rather than spend another fortnight sharing a room with Rimmer. It couldn’t have been true, probably, but when he stumbled through the door to their shared quarters at three in the morning to find Rimmer sat at the table, face buried in his hands, Lister patted him heavily on the shoulder and slurred, in reassurance,

“You ain’t so bad I want to kill meself.”

Rimmer responded in the days that followed by being more obnoxious than ever, reciting endless lists of rules and regulations, and inflicting that ridiculous salute on any sap of an officer that happened to be passing.

“He wouldn’t be so bad if he’d just shut up now and then,” Lister told Petersen, when he had finally completed his daily round of chicken soup maintenance, and Petersen only winked at him, filthily, and said,

“You’re going to have to wish on, Lister. He wouldn’t know what to do with it.”

* * *

It hadn’t been the best scenario in which to introduce the idea, in the middle of the canteen with Rimmer glaring at him from across the room, all alone at his customary little table. But the idea stuck all the same, so that when he fell through the door in the early hours of the following morning, he couldn’t help but spend long moments clinging to the ladder leading to his bunk, mind fixed on the thought that Rimmer really wasn’t anywhere near as ugly as Lister’s friends made him out to be.

In fact, when he had his gob shut, he was really very, very attractive.

The idea wasn’t forgotten in the haze of his hangover, either, and he spent the day being even less use to Zed shift than was normal, distracted as he was with the imagined image of Rimmer _speechless_ and wanting, cheeks flushed the same way they did whenever Lister’s holovids contained more than a brief flash of bare feminine ankle.

He daydreamed about it while Rimmer prattled on about pipe cleaners and the importance of keeping boots polished well enough to see your reflection in. He dreamed about it at night too, knowing that Rimmer was laying in the bunk below, no doubt thinking improper thoughts of his own in the darkness that came as close as the JMC allowed to privacy.

Lister caught him at it one night, recognising too easily the harsh breathing and the rustle of the blankets even as Rimmer did his utmost to keep quiet. It wasn’t the done thing, probably, but Lister couldn’t help himself, his own fingers touching and teasing, in time with Rimmer’s helpless gasps for air beneath him.

He made up his mind then that he had to try. They still had some four years of the mission left - if he continued to waste every opportunity the way he had with Kochanski, for fear of Rimmer saying no, he was liable to go completely space crazy.

* * *

“So you failed the exam, it’s not that big a deal. Come for a drink, you’ll soon forget about it.”

As chat-up lines went it wasn’t perfect, but it didn’t merit the venom with which Rimmer hurled the latest edition of Morris Dancer Monthly at him. His approach clearly required a rethink.

First he tried his most charming smile, and when that failed he went so far as running a wet wipe over his boots and reporting for work on time. Rimmer only scowled at him, mistrusting, and the next day Lister felt so knackered from all the ‘yes sir-ing’ and actual hard graft expected of a model JMC employee he slept through his alarm and turned up a full hour and a half late for duty.

Next he changed tact and attempted to take an interest in battle strategy and Napoleon, but it was too much to ask of anyone, and he was more relieved than disappointed when Rimmer turned down his offer of a game of Risk with a raised eyebrow and a,

“Shouldn’t you be out with your putrid friends, drinking yourself into a coma somewhere?”

All that left was direct action, and Lister spent his next day off drinking four or five fingers of whisky too many in an attempt to work up the courage to follow through with his own madness.

“I didn’t know you owned anything which didn’t need fumigating,” Rimmer said when he came off shift, eyeing up the shirt Lister had purchased with credit that would have otherwise been spent on lager and vindaloo for the occasion.

“Have a whisky,” he said in response, all his carefully planned out speeches deserting him. To his surprise Rimmer only wavered for a few moments before accepting a glass, the face he pulled as the liquor burned its way down his throat proving Lister’s assumption that drinking wasn’t something Rimmer had ever made a habit of.

From there it seemed only natural to keep the booze flowing, and Lister inched his way closer and closer, even as Rimmer’s eyes grew glassy and his posture slipped, until he was slouched down in his seat like a picture of the stereotypical space bum.

“You’re not so bad yourself, you know,” Rimmer slurred when Lister’s face had began to feel numb, in reference to another long ago drunken conversation. “I'd be hard pushed to find anyone on board I'd rather share a room with."

That he then promptly passed out was neither here nor there. The damage had already been done, as far as Lister was concerned, and there was no way of undoing it.

Because it turned out he didn't even need Rimmer to stop talking for his libido - and soap opera softened heart - to start working overtime.

There was no hope for him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As ever, feel free to chat / hit me with prompts over on Tumblr [@serenwib](http://serenwib.tumblr.com/) or Twitter [@falsteloj](https://twitter.com/falsteloj). :)


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for the prompt: Remake of Rimmer's only/first sexual liaison. Instead of Yvonne Mcgruder getting hit on the head with a winch, it was Dave Lister. And they're still roommates.
> 
> Originally posted here: http://starbuggers.livejournal.com/317.html?thread=50749#t50749

“Black card, Rimmer.”

“But -” Rimmer said, trying and failing not to give into the urge to bite at his lip, nervously. This was the kind of thing that could ruin the smooth running of an essential maintenance shift. It was the kind of thing that could ruin promising careers before they even got properly under way.

It was the kind of thing that could ruin _his_ career.

He opened his mouth to continue, to impress on Lister the importance that they get it all ironed out. That he not report the incident to the HR department. Lister just reached for his jacket and pushed past him, expression unreadable.

“How many times do I have to tell you, Rimmer? I don’t want to talk about it!”

* * *

The problem was that ignoring the situation was something easier said than done. Rimmer tried, God knows he did, so Lister must have been trying at least three times as hard.

But the ship’s gossips had heard about his own ridiculous trait of following the letter of JMC rules and regulations, and turning up at the medi-bay to update his files to read that he was no longer a virgin, just as it outlined in company health mandate 732/b.

The nurses had stifled giggles, and even the medi-bot had grinned harder than was necessary all across its badly generated visage. By lunchtime it was all across the ship, and the so called ship’s counsellor had assured him jovially that, even as she spoke, over a thousand dollarpounds was up for grabs to the person who correctly identified whomever had been drunk enough to willingly sleep with him.

Rimmer had left then, head held high, and it was only the fact he caught his shin on the low coffee table that prevented the scene from looking like a truly dignified exit.

He tried to talk to Lister about it, again, when he reached their shared quarters, but Lister’s subjective deafness had only worsened, and the scouse git disappeared not long afterwards with his friends, and didn’t return until gone 4am in the morning.

* * *

“You must have some idea,” the voice said, and Rimmer scowled at recognising it as belonging to Lister’s deranged mate Petersen. “He must have said something.”

“It’s not something I like to think about,” Lister’s voice answered. “What does it matter who it was, anyway?”

Rimmer could almost see Petersen’s eyes bulging out of his skull, matching the over excited way he stressed, “Lister! There’s 1200 dollarpounds riding on this. Just think of the shore leave we could have with that kind of money!”

Lister’s answer wasn’t audible, but the door slid open not long afterwards, and Rimmer did his best to make it look as though he was reading his magazine, and not peering at Lister over the edge of the front cover.

It was difficult, ever since The Incident, for Rimmer to see only the here and now whenever he looked at Lister. His brain kept replaying the way Lister had pulled him through the door to their quarters by the wrist, and the way he hadn’t relinquished the grip even as he had pushed Rimmer down onto his bunk - the very bunk he was now lying in - and proceeded to clamber in on top of him.

Rimmer would have put a stop to it, he told himself, if he had had any inkling of the madness Lister had planned for the evening. If he had had any idea of the way Lister was going to kiss him, and scrabble at his belt buckle, and order him to first shut up and keep still, then change his mind and demand that he move, now, faster, and tell him exactly how many times he had dreamed of having Lister all over him.

Quite a lot, as it happened, but that was nothing more than the constant proximity. They had had a guest speaker give a lecture about it at the Love Celibacy Society.

“Don’t even think about it,” Lister warned, obviously not fooled for a moment by the copy of Facist Dictator Monthly. “I was drunk. Blind drunk. And I’d just been hit in the head by a smegging great winch. It didn’t mean nothing.”

Rimmer didn’t argue, it wasn’t like the painful twisting in his chest was a sign of anything other than indigestion.

* * *

By more or less mutual agreement it became one of those things they never alluded to. Not in the weeks running up to Lister’s trip into status, Rimmer determining that keeping quiet about a cat was the better option in the long run to being kicked out of the Space Corps for taking advantage of a concussed junior crew member.

They didn’t talk about it afterwards - after his own incompetence caused yet another disaster - either, though sometimes Rimmer was sure there was something in Lister’s gaze. There was certainly something in his own, from time to time, but Lister was oblivious or else intent on ignoring it.

At least he was until he had no choice to hand Jim and Bexley over to their mother - father? Rimmer was still hazy on the details - and drank enough to make up for the whole nine months he had been forced to go without any.

“I am sorry,” Rimmer tried, because he was for Lister’s sake, not because he had wanted to have to put with Lister’s mutated offspring for the foreseeable future.

Lister only sniffed, and scoffed, and sloshed Leopard Lager all down the front of his already filthy T-shirt. “No you’re not,” Lister countered, sounding so disturbingly close to an emotional scene Rimmer couldn’t help but shift on the spot, awkwardly. “How could you understand what it’s like? You’ve never even had a girlfriend.”

The accusation was true, obviously, but Rimmer couldn’t help but argue. It was a deeply ingrained instinct.

“I never wanted one. I was - _am_ \- a member of the Love Celibacy Society.”

“Yeah,” Lister sniggered, “right. And that’s why you couldn’t wait to stick your tongue down my throat. _Oh, Lister, don’t stop, how did you know this was what I wanted_?”

The fight seemed to drain out of him once the words were between them, cold and clear, breaking down all their make believe little barriers.

Rimmer swallowed thickly. It hadn’t been his fault. How was he to know Lister had walked into a winch? How was he supposed to know how people behaved when they wanted to have sex with someone? It wasn’t as though he had suitors pawing at the door to get a piece of him.

It must have shown on his face, the unfairness of it all, because Lister sighed, slumped back against the wall he had commandeered.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”

They sat in silence. Lister morose and despondent, and himself confused and hard done by. It had been Lister’s choice to act as though it had never happened. He couldn’t help it if he was such an embarrassment to Lister’s reputation. Lister probably hadn't even been very good at it, and Rimmer would have said so if he'd had somebody - anybody - else to compare him to.

“I tried to talk to you about it,” he said eventually - stubbornly.

Lister reached for his hand then, actually _reached_ for _his_ hand, which would have had his heart hammering had he still had one. As it was Lister’s hand went straight through his projection, and Lister let his head thud back against the wall, his eyes clenched shut.

“Rimmer,” Lister said, finally, voice strained like he had spent an afternoon watching his goited stupid soap operas. “Tomorrow, when I wake up, let’s pretend this conversation never happened, yeah? Let’s pretend none of it ever happened.”

Rimmer stared at his hand for a long moment, as though he could see where Lister had breached the outline, and nodded dumbly before saluting on it and stalking away to make the most of his restless energy by closely supervising the daily task list he had drawn up for the skutters.

Humanity was all but extinct and they were going to be stuck in deep space for the rest of eternity.

He wasn’t even real, and Lister was a scumbucket.

Pretending nothing had ever happened between them had to be the sanest suggestion he had heard in a long time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As ever, feel free to chat / hit me with prompts over on Tumblr [@serenwib](http://serenwib.tumblr.com/) or Twitter [@falsteloj](https://twitter.com/falsteloj). :)


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Random ficlet inspired by a prompt for Rimmer and Lister talking about having sex with a woman, and it leading to more. The problem was that this talk didn't lead anyone anywhere...

“Rimmer,” Lister said, squirming about on his bunk to get a better look at the man, “even if there was a woman on board, a woman you could touch, you wouldn’t have a smegging clue what to do with her.”

Rimmer scowled, nostrils flaring in irritation. “I think Yvonne McGruder would tell a different story.”

“She wouldn’t tell any story,” Lister pointed out, grinning, “she’s dead, Rimmer.”

That was a bit harsh, probably, what with Rimmer being ‘differently sentient’ and all that smeg. And Lister was a nice guy. That was the only reason he found himself saying,

“Alright then, what would she say? What hot moves did you manage to pull during your eleven and half minutes of passion?”

Because he wasn’t a total martyr, and Rimmer was giving him the same kind of look he used to bestow right before a lecture about pipe cleaners, he couldn’t resist adding,

“Don’t forget about the pizza, either. We want to hear all the gory details.”

Rimmer knew he was being set up. He had to, Lister reasoned. But he still couldn’t turn down the opportunity to boast. That was the kind of guy Rimmer was.

“A gentleman never tells,” Rimmer said airily, and before Lister even had chance to object went on, “but if you must know, well,” an embarrassed flush was working across Rimmer’s face now, “Yvonne was completely satisfied.” Doubt edged its way across his expression. “She passed out afterwards, anyway.”

“Really? You must have shown her a good time then.”

Rimmer beamed, smug and self-satisfied, and Lister tried not to say the next bit, he really truly honestly did. But he was only human

“She never did that with any of me mates when they were going out with her.”

Rimmer’s hand went straight through the toaster, and the iron he’d been tinkering with earlier. In place of physical violence Rimmer had no choice but to yell, complete with pointing and foot stamping. 

Lister just grinned and returned his attention to his magazine.

It really was too easy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As ever, feel free to chat / hit me with prompts over on Tumblr [@serenwib](http://serenwib.tumblr.com/) or Twitter [@falsteloj](https://twitter.com/falsteloj). :)


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for the prompt: Lister doing suggestive things with the fruit in "Camille" after Kryten leaves (check the deleted scenes if you need inspiration). Can be a dream of Rimmer's or perhaps he's spying on him and starts fantasising.
> 
> Originally posted here: http://starbuggers.livejournal.com/317.html?thread=85309#t108349

Lister wasn’t one for fresh fruit. Nor any other kind of fruit, in Rimmer’s experience. If it hadn’t come out of a vending machine, or been smothered in curry powder, Lister generally wasn’t interested.

Which was why it was so unusual to find Lister sat in their bunkroom with not one, not two, but three pieces of fruit laid out in front of him.

“You are worried about catching scurvy,” Rimmer crowed, knowing how it would rile Lister. He allowed himself a wry smirk when Lister, predictably, gave him a two-fingered salute in answer.

“They’re a teaching aid, if you must know.”

It wasn’t what Lister had meant, Rimmer wasn’t that stupid. He had passed the bogbot out in the corridor. But the words clawed the image to his mind, all the same, and he had to sit, dropping down to his bunk awkwardly, lest Lister notice which direction his simulated blood was currently flowing in.

Lister was too busy peeling the banana, taking a moment to gaze at the exposed fruit with a look that wouldn’t have been out of place in the kind of holovid Rimmer had only ever seen offered for sale on Mimas.

He must have looked a sight himself, his cheeks flushed and his mouth hanging open, but Lister only shoved the banana in his mouth and garbled a ‘later’ in his direction as he left the room for a session of slobbing about in slightly different surroundings.

Rimmer was going to use the peace and quiet constructively, was not going to waste another moment thinking about his slovenly excuse of a room mate, he -

He was going to do something about the throbbing hard on tenting out the front of his uniform, before somebody came in and caught him with it.

The thing to do was to think of something off putting, something so utterly disgusting his body would give up this latest display of disobedience. Instinctively his mind offered up Lister, and there was obviously something wrong with his processing chip because the remembered images of Lister smoking, drinking, eating, did nothing to improve the situation.

In fact the problem only worsened, because at any given moment Lister was putting something in his mouth, be it a cigarette, his own thumb, or even a banana, and from there it was only a short hop, skip and a jump to imagining the kind of thing Rimmer could introduce to that mouth, given the option.

It seemed his mind had been made up for him and, with the decision made, the most obvious thing to do was to let his fingers battle with his belt buckle. Privacy was a rare commodity aboard Red Dwarf. Lister could come back at any moment. The thought should have been a metaphorical bucket of cold water. All it did was make the need to touch himself more urgent. Because in his mind’s eye Lister had returned, expression too knowing as he made a show of eating that smegging banana.

He couldn’t help the breathy whimper at the first touch of his hand, and at least it wasn’t going to take long, not if the way his leg spasmed at the swipe of his thumb against the head was anything to go by.

The Lister in his imagination, the Lister with the dark eyes and the sultry smile, was watching him intently, was crouched so close Rimmer could have reached out and touched him, was whispering,

“Let me taste you.”

It was all over in a matter of seconds, his body tense and trembling, his breathing harsh and desperate.

It was embarrassing, Rimmer told himself. Giving in so readily to a moment of madness.

Yet he lay still for long moments, not quite willing to let go of the fantasy, and it was only the sound of muffled footsteps in the corridor that finally spurred him into action.

Lister scarcely looked in his direction when he entered, and Rimmer didn’t make any attempt at conversation. He didn’t want to talk to Lister. He didn’t want _anything_ from Lister.

And if he didn’t believe it now, it was of no matter. He had the rest of eternity to convince himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As ever, feel free to chat / hit me with prompts over on Tumblr [@serenwib](http://serenwib.tumblr.com/) or Twitter [@falsteloj](https://twitter.com/falsteloj). :)


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for the prompt: Pre-accident, Rimmer is forced to do a particularly dirty job which he usually somehow gets out of (maybe he always deliberately allocates it to Z Shift members he doesn't like, or maybe it's not a Second Technician's duty at all and he's been put on it as punishment detail). Because of his massive snobbery, he finds it very degrading, and everyone who sees/hears about it takes great pleasure in winding him up. Make it slashy or shippy or sexy if you like, I really don't mind. I just have a kink for Rimmer getting taken down a peg or two.
> 
> Originally posted here: http://starbuggers.livejournal.com/317.html?thread=92989#t92989

“But - but I can’t!” Rimmer sputtered, his usual eloquence deserting him at the amused shake of Todhunter’s head. “It’s not on my action sheet.”

“Nonsense,” Todhunter said, reasoned tone masking the man’s innate smegheadedness. “Lister here is unwell.”

Lister took the opportunity to cough, thumping his fist against his chest, in as convincing a display as Donald Trump’s comb over.

“And,” Todhunter went on, oblivious, “nobody else is free. You drew up their rotas.”

Rimmer fumed, even as panic, thick and cloying, descended.

“Come on, Rimmer,” Todhunter said, seeing only his reluctance. “Captain’s orders.”

“Come on, Rimmer,” Lister echoed, grin spreading across his stupid face. “The sooner you get started, the sooner it’ll be over.”

He hesitated still, the unfairness of it all overwhelming. Then reality kicked in, along with the knowledge that this was an order. An order from the Captain no less.

There was nothing he could do about it.

Lister watched on, smirking, as he took the gloves from the bottom tray of the trolley and pulled them on. As he pulled the velcro straps around his wrists and ankles tighter, and snapped the flimsy dust mask into place.

They didn’t understand, Rimmer thought. It wasn’t about abusing his position as shift supervisor to avoid this job - though perhaps it was, just a little - it was about maintaining the dignity of his position. It was about being able to command respect.

It was about the summer when his brothers had read about the boggy marshes of Sherlock Holmes’ Dartmoor, and engineered their own patch of Victorian horror in the garden, pointing and laughing as the mud had filled his mouth and his ears, so he had been sure he was never going to get the chance to fail his Academy entrance exams.

In the present he unscrewed the cover, and slid, gingerly, into the crawl space housing the humidity unit for the botanical gardens. He grimaced as his feet sunk into the sludge pooled at the bottom, trying and failing to convince himself that it was only mud. He knew the kind of things people got up to, out of sight of the on board CCTV system.

“It should be on the far wall,” Todhunter called, and though a man of Lister’s height might have just got away with crouching down, Rimmer had no choice but to sink to his knees and curse the goit who had designed the system.

“Rimmer,” Lister called when he’d finally reached the control box, sounding so happy Rimmer would have sworn had his superior officer not been standing somewhere above his head. “You’ve forgotten your toolbox.”

* * *

 Later, after slipping and sliding and ending up face first in the slurry. After enduring Lister’s hysterical laughter, and Todhunter’s barely concealed glee, Rimmer stood under the spray of the shower, not caring that his hot water allowance had run out. He wanted to be certain every last trace of it was gone.

It wouldn’t even be so bad, he told himself as he towel dried his hair and pulled on his pyjamas. Nobody else would ever need to know, and he’d give Lister every smeggy job for the next month, just to teach the little goit a lesson.

In fact, it could work in his favour. Next time Z shift complained, he could point out how easy the job was. How he’d done it himself without raising a single objection. It would look good on his personnel file. Teamwork. Initiative. Leadership.

Except the following morning somebody had pinned a photocopied photograph of him covered in viscous brown goop to the blackboard he used to detail the day’s rotas. There was another out in the corridor, two in the lift, and seven making the rounds in the canteen.

Everywhere he went his own face scowled petulantly out at him, and through the crackling coming through Lister’s headphones he heard his own name, followed by the nasal bray of the halfwit DJ on JMC FM.

The worst - the absolute worst - came two days later, when he was busy compiling the next day’s action sheets. The Captain hadn’t sent a memo. He had mixed up the colour co-ordinated complaint slips.

There hadn’t been anything wrong with the botanical garden’s humidity unit.

Lister peered over his shoulder, beaming.

He was never going to live this down, Rimmer decided.

Never.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As ever, feel free to chat / hit me with prompts over on Tumblr [@serenwib](http://serenwib.tumblr.com/) or Twitter [@falsteloj](https://twitter.com/falsteloj). :)


	8. Spanking

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for the prompt: Something with Lister caning or spanking Rimmer. It's not usually Lister's thing, but it's what Rimmer wants, and it turns out to be more fun than he expected.
> 
> Originally posted here: http://starbuggers.livejournal.com/317.html?thread=1597#t113981

Before, before the accident, before he had ever really _looked_ at Rimmer, Lister never would have guessed at it. Even in the present, with everything they had been through together, with all of the secrets Rimmer had confided, and all the memories and the diary entries he hadn’t, Lister still found it surprising.

The other way around he was more prepared for, perhaps, because he had once been the plaything of Rimmer’s low counterpart. He could still feel the sting of the holowhip, if he concentrated.

Rimmer looked scandalised at that confession, for all he was still flushed red with embarrassment.

“You really think I’m the kind of guy who gets off on hitting his partner?”

Lister shrugged, settling for,

“You seem to think I am.”

To his credit, Rimmer blushed still harder, so hard it looked painful. “The difference,” he said quietly, “is that I know _you_ wouldn’t like it.”

The stress on the you did things to him, heated, desperate things, especially when combined with the awkward, hopeful look on Rimmer’s face. Suddenly he could see it all too clearly. Rimmer with his head bowed, silently acknowledging what was coming, the colour rising in his cheeks as Lister told him to drop his trousers. The grateful look in his eyes as Lister administered the much needed punishment...

It was enough to make him cling to Rimmer, to plunder his mouth until they were both breathless, Rimmer gasping and groaning and grinding against him, even as Lister realised too late what exactly was happening.

“I’m sorry,” Rimmer managed, his voice and limbs unsteady in a way that made his own dick twitch dangerously. “I didn’t mean to, I’m sorry.”

Perhaps it was because he was so _so_ close, perhaps it was because permission was really all he had ever been waiting for, perhaps- Whatever the reason he heard himself speak, clipped and demanding,

“I don’t think you’re sorry at all. I think you did that on purpose.”

“I didn’t-” Rimmer started, half petulant, half anxious, but Lister cut him off,

“I think,” Lister said, enjoying the incredulous understanding settling across Rimmer’s features, “you need me to teach you a lesson. Don’t you, Arnold?”

It might not have gone any further than that, not that first time, but Rimmer shivered, visibly, and Lister couldn’t help himself.

“You’ve made a mess of yourself already. You’re going to have to strip before we get started.”

Rimmer just stared at him for a moment, long enough for Lister to worry that he was doing it all wrong, that he was smegging up Rimmer’s number one fantasy. And then Rimmer’s movements were frantic, head bowed and fingers shaking as he unbuttoned his shirt and struggled with his belt buckle.

Lister watched, blood pounding in his ears, as Rimmer carried out his instructions. His skin looked paler than usual, contrasting with the flush across his face and chest, and when it was done he stood awkwardly, waiting for Lister to say something.

“Come here,” he managed, shifting to sit closer to the edge of the bunk. Rimmer obeyed, the tension in the room almost unbearable, and Lister had to swallow thickly when the other man settled across his lap.

He was heavy, but in a good way, and Lister stroked one hand down Rimmer’s flank, enjoying the heat of his skin. Rimmer squirmed, restless, and Lister could feel his renewed erection pressed against his leg. It made his own ache in sympathy.

“I should have put you over my knee a long time ago,” he said, just to hear the way Rimmer bit back a moan. In response he let his hand make contact, a practice swing, not hard enough to hurt but hard enough to fill their room with sound of flesh hitting flesh.

“Yes,” Rimmer gasped, as though to placate Lister’s lingering doubts, and Lister let his hand trail low, to let Rimmer know he was grateful.

He applied himself in earnest after that, transfixed at the bloom of colour his hand left behind. At the stinging of his own palm, and the way Rimmer tried and failed to keep quiet and still, panting and begging,

“Please, Lister. Harder. _Please_.”

It was the please which did it, made him lose the last of his inhibitions and bring his hand down with force, once, twice, three times. The appreciative sounds Rimmer couldn’t quite keep back only served to make his head spin, to make his own breath come in short, shallow bursts.

He slapped Rimmer again, palm open, and the answering gasp was too much, had him moving and pushing Rimmer onto his back, flat against the thin mattress. Rimmer didn’t protest, instead clutching at his dreads with one hand, holding his head in place as they kissed like their continued existence depended on it.

Rimmer’s other hand was pulling at his buttons, frantic, and Lister pushed his arm down against the bunk before taking over, pushing his trousers and underwear down and out of the way with as much speed as he could manage.

“I should have done this sooner,” he told Rimmer, voice strained as he wrapped a hand around both himself and Rimmer. Rimmer clung to him, hips snapping up without rhythm. “You definitely deserved it.”

He nipped at Rimmer’s lip, for emphasis, and Rimmer’s fingers dug deep enough into the skin of his shoulders for him to know what was coming, even without Rimmer’s helpless cries of,

“I can’t - Lister - I’m -”

It tipped him over the edge, the way Rimmer fell apart against him, the intensity of it leaving him draped heavily over Rimmer, invading the man’s personal space in a way he had never quite managed before. For once Rimmer allowed it, offering him a shy smile when he glanced up to check that everything was okay.

“Thank you,” Rimmer told him in a whisper, clearly unable to elaborate further.

Lister settled his arm a little more possessively, feeling more content than he had in a long time.

“Any time, Rimmer.”

He meant it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As ever, feel free to chat / hit me with prompts over on Tumblr [@serenwib](http://serenwib.tumblr.com/) or Twitter [@falsteloj](https://twitter.com/falsteloj). :)


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for the prompt: Rimmer/Lister, set in the 'Dad' AU: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pp_7kzsll0Y
> 
> Originally posted here: http://starbuggers.livejournal.com/317.html?thread=6461#t6461

Rimmer, as the highest ranked officer on the ship, was determined to see that Lister’s pregnancy progressed without complication.

He lectured Lister on the importance of exercise and healthy eating, and banned him from staying up late watching vids, insisting that a regular sleep pattern would prove beneficial.

Lister scowled at him sullenly in response, in between the moping and the retching and the feeling sorry for himself, but Rimmer refused to let it get to him. He had been forced to go an awareness course when he had first made shift supervisor.

It was his duty to try and drum at least some of that knowledge into Lister’s thick skull.

Lister didn’t thank him for any of it, naturally, intent on waking him around 27 times a night to use the toilet, and wandering around their room half naked, staring at his ever growing profile in the wardrobe mirror.

“I’m getting bigger by the day,” Lister told him one morning, just as he had every other day since the test had proved positive. “I could pass for me Gran’s body double.”

Rimmer glared at him over the top of his hologrammatic copy of _The Joy of Pregnancy_. One of them was going to have to be prepared, and Lister had the intellectual capacity of a pre-packaged cheese sandwich.

“It’s that smock,” he said, eyeing up the floral monstrosity in question. The skutters had salvaged it from the recreation deck. “I’m surprised you haven’t been mistaken for a pair of curtains.”

Lister only sniffled in response and Rimmer forced himself to ignore it, to focus on the book. He wasn’t equipped to deal with Lister's ever more frequent displays of hormone fueled emotion.

By the end of the month it was clear that it didn’t matter if he was equipped or not. Lister was goitishly determined to keep having them. When ignoring the situation failed, he tried fleeing to somewhere with more sanity. But the teaching room only reminded him of his own bouts of stress induced madness, and he eventually decided that running wasn’t the answer.

Lister didn’t respond to the bracing lectures his father had used to give him, at least not with the kind of response he was hoping for and, when even the promise of curry and slightly flat JMC issue soda failed to improve the situation, Rimmer finally accepted defeat.

They would just have to _talk_ about things.

And they did, about all sorts of things. Some of them, to his surprise, actually worthy of conversation. Lister rambled on about his own childhood, and the time one of his ex-girlfriend’s had almost been pregnant. Rimmer didn’t have much to contribute, what with his parents, and his lack of romantic entanglements, but he listened, and asked questions, and only insulted Lister when it was absolutely necessary, which was still around 80% of the duration of an average day.

One night, when Lister was busy being sick, over and over again, he even gave up the bottom bunk, and almost didn’t bother to get the skutters to fumigate it, the morning after.

“I’m the size of a beached whale,” Lister told him one night, months later, when time was running out and Kryten had finally been programmed into something resembling competence.

Rimmer opened his mouth to disagree, to inform Lister of his gross stupidity. Did they not have textbooks in Liverpool? But Lister carried on talking,

“It’s been nice though, aside from the sickness and the stretch marks, like.”

“What are you blithering about now?” Rimmer asked in turn, though in truth he knew full well. It had almost been like they were friends the last few months.

Almost.

“Me and you,” Lister said, mirroring his own thoughts. “Talking, joking. Being normal.”

“Listy,” Rimmer heaved a put upon sigh, “there is nothing normal about a hologram and his pregnant male bunkmate.”

“Well, when you put it like that...”

The words hung in the air, tone teasing, and Rimmer couldn’t help the smile that clung stubbornly to his face as he fell asleep. It had been - not nice, he couldn’t go that far, but tolerable. And, in a few weeks time, Lister was going to be turning to him for all the support and advice on things he hadn’t bothered to spend his own time reading up on.

When he fell asleep, it was to the sound of Lister’s snoring and the pleasant imaginings of all the ways in which Lister was bound to find his presence indispensable once he had given birth. Lister wouldn’t have time to be quite as irritating, and he would never again be thought surplus to requirements.

Perhaps nice was the right word, after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As ever, feel free to chat / hit me with prompts over on Tumblr [@serenwib](http://serenwib.tumblr.com/) or Twitter [@falsteloj](https://twitter.com/falsteloj). :)


	10. PWP

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for the prompt: I just want Rimmer getting fucked by Lister, and loving it.
> 
> Originally posted here: http://starbuggers.livejournal.com/317.html?thread=37693#t37693

“It’s disgusting,” Rimmer said. “You’re not the only one who has to use those machines. I would like to be able to enjoy _Virtual Risk_ without worrying which of your bodily fluids are congealing in the upholstery.”

Lister didn’t even have the decency to look ashamed.

“You don’t understand,” he said instead, tone wheedling. “I’m going mad. You had your fair share as Ace, I bet. I can’t even remember the last time I got anything more real than me own hand.”

“You should have been nicer to your wife,” Rimmer shot back, to hide his own discomfort. Being Ace really wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. Not for him, at any rate.

It had only taken a few irate husbands, fathers, and other interested parties threatening to beat him to within an inch of his unlife to decide to employ the Love Celibacy Society’s mantra: Because it’s just not worth it.

Lister, far too perceptive for a man who hadn’t even completed a full day at art college, changed tact. “You know, we could probably come to some mutually beneficial arrangement. If we wanted to.”

It wasn’t the first time Lister had suggested it. The first time Rimmer had assumed the loss of Kochanski had finally succeeded where everything else had failed, and robbed the goit of his last two functioning brain cells.

The second time, he hadn’t known what to think, nor the third, the fourth, or the twenty seventh. It was another of Lister’s jokes, some scheme to humiliate him in front of the others. Else he’d rig a camera and blackmail him into allowing curry night to resume it’s seven nightly status.

Aloud he said, “Some of us have standards, Lister. It’s not that I ask much of my prospective bed partners. An IQ above 12, a slightly more intimate relationship with personal hygiene than an annual wash down in the galley sink. The basics.”

“I had a shower this morning,” Lister countered, looking smug.

Rimmer groped for a witty comeback, for any comeback. “No,” he managed eventually. “It’s never going to happen.”

* * *

Lister wasn’t one for giving up on a hopeless situation easily. His ceaseless badgering of and, later, mooning over Kochanski should have given him warning. But this was not an eventuality Rimmer had ever considered, at least not seriously.

 _Lister_ chasing after  _him_.

Sometimes he wondered if the Wildfire had messed up, if this wasn’t quite his own dimension, but some crazy, whacko alternative in which Lister spent his days dreaming up ways to get into his JMC regulation underwear, and he spent his nights thinking about how that really wasn’t such a distasteful scenario.

He was going space crazy, he told himself sternly, and ignored the voice reminding him of all the time he had once dedicated to fantasising about Lister.

The problem was that he didn’t do a good enough job of it, and he found himself on the observation deck, staring at Lister, mind full of those long quashed hopes that _something_ was going to happen between them. And now Lister was offering it, begging for it even, and he was worried about - what? His reputation? His pride? They’d taken worse kickings than being an itch Lister wanted to scratch.

It wasn’t, his libido reassured itself, as if Lister was really going to want to broadcast it. If it was about humiliation he’d have surely given up now, and found some other angle.

His brain, if asked, would have disagreed, but an entirely different head was now in the driving seat and when Lister turned to him and asked, eyes dark,

“Thinking about my proposition?”

Rimmer was entirely powerless to stop himself nodding.

* * *

They ended up back in the bunk room, his simulated pulse racing. Lister was sucking at his neck, sending pleasurable thrills through him, even as Lister’s fingers tugged at the fastenings of his tunic, as though he really were desperate to get at him.

It made his head spin.

In turn he clutched at Lister, hands sliding beneath the fabric of his t-shirt to feel the warmth of his skin. It felt like his own skin was tingling, sparking with energy, and it was probably something to do with his projection but it put him in mind of the sappy romance novels which had done the rounds back at Io House, in lieu of the availability of anything more racy.

“I dreamt about this,” Lister said then, leading him to the nearest bunk, “when you were off being a space hero.”

The idea was intensely appealing, that even with Kochanski on board Lister’s subconscious had still chosen to fixate on him.

“You’ve already won,” was what he actually said in response. “You can stop laying it on so thick now; I’m not some simpering idiot you’ve picked up at the local disco.”

Lister only pushed at his chest, just enough for him to take the hint and lie back on the bunk.

“Why do you have to be so stubborn? Why can’t you just accept that I want you, no hidden agenda? I know you want me,” Lister grinned, “I’ve read your diary.”

Rimmer would have protested, would have put a halt to the whole thing, but Lister chose that moment to press closer, his thigh falling between Rimmer’s, and all he could do was gasp, helplessly. Then Lister kissed him, hot and slick and unlike anything Rimmer had ever experienced, and in moments he was struggling to keep track of what was happening. Lister’s hands were everywhere, and they were both naked, though Rimmer couldn’t think when the undressing had occurred.

Lister’s mouth was hovering over his erection, the anticipation alone enough to reduce him to whimpering, and Lister met his gaze, hot and intense, and said,

“Smeg, you look good when you’re not arguing.”

He’d have argued about that, on principle, but Lister lapped carefully at the tip of his cock before doing his best to swallow him whole. It was all Rimmer could do not to come with a howl at the first moment of contact. It couldn’t last long, not with the frankly obscene things Lister was doing with his mouth. He tried to warn Lister, a garbled cry the best he could manage, but Lister didn’t seem in the least put out. Instead he held his hips tighter, took him deeper. It was too much, Rimmer reasoned, for anyone.

Lister kissed him afterwards, soft and slow, and Rimmer pretended the odd taste wasn’t a turn on, reaching with one hand to reciprocate. You had manners drummed into you on Io. Lister stopped him, pinning his arm back to the bed and breaking the kiss without any sense of urgency.

“I haven’t finished with you yet,” he said. “That was just the warm up session.”

Rimmer tried to stay aware this time, to play an equal role in what had always been designed as a game for two. But it only took the briefest of caresses to reduce him to moaning and writhing - much to his chagrin - and Lister seemed more than happy to have him just lie there, begging for Lister to not stop, to keep touching him, tone growing ever more desperate.

Fingertips trailed over his skin, closer and closer to where he most wanted, needed them, and Rimmer gasped when they bypassed his cock to press lower. It wouldn’t work, he thought with a tinge of hysteria. It would hurt, and he had a low pain threshold, and Lister would never ever offer a repeat performance - Except Lister had produced a tube from somewhere, and even as a newly slicked finger nudged at his entrance, Lister was mouthing at his cock again, so that he scarcely had brain power to think beyond, oh God, oh please, oh fuck, Lister keep doing that.

He must have said it out loud he realised, when Lister paused to say,

“That’s it. Tell me how much you want it. Tell me everything.”

It was like something snapping, something deep inside that kept his posture straight and his upper lip stiffened. He couldn’t keep quiet, couldn’t stop telling Lister how much he wanted it, how often he had thought of it alone in his bunk on Wildfire, and before, even. How he’d always wanted Lister, and how he’d waited long enough, and why wasn’t Lister doing something?

Except Lister was, his slow, careful movements becoming more confident, the twist of his fingers making Rimmer arch off the bed, coherency forgotten. Lister did it again, pressing against something that made stars dance across his vision, and then the fingers were gone and Lister was panting, frantic, hands pushing Rimmer’s legs into position as he pressed their bodies together.

It did hurt, distantly, beyond the roaring in his ears and the ache of his erection. But Lister was restrained, careful, and the discomfort dissolved into the need for more, and now, and faster. Lister yelped when he pushed back against him, and the sound was so exciting Rimmer did it again, harder, suddenly desperate for Lister to be doing this properly.

He didn’t know if Lister had done it before, in that moment he didn’t care. Lister knew what he was doing, and that was all that mattered, the slow, steady thrusts growing ever more erratic as Rimmer clutched at the bedsheets and rocked back to meet them. It was amazing, perfect, and when Lister relinquished his grip of one leg to stroke his cock, Rimmer took up the slack, uncaring of how ridiculous he must look, spread open for a man he had once claimed to be less attractive than the mould he was growing in his dirty coffee mug.

"I'm going to -" Lister told him, and the knowledge that it was him, his body, that was making it happen was enough to make his own arousal spiral. Lister's grip on his cock tightened, the movement of his hips wild, and Rimmer couldn't keep quiet, couldn't hold back. He groaned Lister's name as he came, and he felt Lister come moments later, the sensation prolonging the fevered tremors of his own body.

Lister collapsed on top of him, let him ease his aching legs flat before crawling closer, half covering him on the narrow bunk. It felt somehow more intimate than everything that had gone before, to have Lister cuddled up to him, his own arm wrapped around Lister though he couldn't remember giving it conscious instruction to carry out such an action.

"I knew we'd get there eventually," Lister told him, words slurring with exhaustion.

Rimmer let his hand trail down the skin of Lister's arm, just to prove that it was real, and he wasn't just imagining things. Satisfied he settled against the pillow, smug smile curving across his face,

"Don't think you're getting away with it that easily. There's still the matter of breaching the sanctity of a superior officer's private diary to deal with."

Lister only snored in answer, but that wasn't a problem. It just gave him more time to think up a fitting punishment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As ever, feel free to chat / hit me with prompts over on Tumblr [@serenwib](http://serenwib.tumblr.com/) or Twitter [@falsteloj](https://twitter.com/falsteloj). :)


	11. Dirty Dancing AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for the prompt: I had the terrifying idea that Rimmer's family took him to the Catskills for summer vacation when he was just 18, and he met the star staff dancer, Lister. Though the line "No one puts Baby in the corner" probably won't directly apply, my brain wants to see an older Lister teaching a younger Rimmer how to dirty dance. Or Lister could have lied about his age, I don't really care. (why yes, I did just hear The Time of My Life on the radio, why do you ask?)
> 
> Link: http://starbuggers.livejournal.com/317.html?thread=118333#t118333

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't even know what happened here, and the resort ended up like some kind of demented Pontins camp. The how's are up to the reader - AU, AR, time travel. Anything's possible in Red Dwarf, to be fair.

“You,” his father demanded, snapping his fingers, “come here.”

The waiter’s gaze flickered to his mother and back to his father before he started moving, and Rimmer squirmed uncomfortably. They had only been there a day. When had she found the time?

“This soup,” his father began, over-enunciating as though the waiter really were the imbecile he thought him to be, “is luke warm. Soup ought to be served piping hot or, and I think you will find I am correct in saying this, it ought not to be served at all.”

“I’m very sorry to hear that, Sir, but -”

Rimmer winced. It didn’t matter that they were dining late, that father’s astro-navigation pop quiz had taken the better part of the allotted dining hour, excuses were never the way forward. He ought to know, what with his eighteen years experience of being the chief source of his father’s disappointment.

This was going to erupt into a full blown scene, with the chef and the manager and everyone watching. At least, he thought later, it would have, had the compère not chosen that moment to announce the night’s entertainment, the lights above them dipping low as the resort’s star dancers trooped out onto the stage.

Around him even his brothers breathed more easily.

Crisis averted.

* * *

Kellerman’s had been a failing holiday resort at the turn of the 22nd century, criticised for its outdated décor and old fashioned sensibilities. It had been 2210 when the management had first hit on the idea of advertising almost exclusively to the notoriously uptight and culturally conservative settlers of Io, and ever since the place had only gone from strength to strength.

The Rimmers had been holidaying there annually since the late 2230s, and though this was the first time Rimmer himself had been invited to join them, its attractions were obvious. From the hammond organ recitals every Tuesday night, to the polished brass buttons on the regulation staff uniforms, the management clearly knew their customers.

That was what Rimmer was thinking as the dance act turned perfect circles around the well buffed floor, his gaze fixed on one pair in particular. He didn’t think he had ever seen a man with hair that long, not in the flesh at any rate. A spanking short haircut had been the only acceptable style at Io House and, as far as Rimmer could tell, every other institution on Io.

He could almost hear his father’s unspoken objections to the sight of it.

“They like to have these little reminders that you’re on Earth,” his mother was confessing to his new sister-in-law Janine. “It’s really rather charming.”

The compère invited holidaymakers to join the staff on the dance floor then, and for a moment his gaze met that of the dancer he had been watching so fixedly. The man smiled at him, easy and open, and Rimmer felt the blush stain his cheeks even as the rest of his family left him to mind their personal possessions.

Charming, indeed.

* * *

The following day dawned grey and overcast, to match his mood at finding out what was planned for him for its duration. His mother had forgotten he would no longer be eligible for the Under-12s club, and had arranged for the rest of the family to go on the resort’s mystery bus tour.

Rimmer had seen the look that had passed between her and one of the well built members of kitchen staff at breakfast, and was under no illusion as to the reasoning behind her sudden desire to get his father off-site for the day. She shooed him out of the chalet as soon as the others were gone, and so he was left to his own devices.

After spending all his pocket change at the amusement arcade, and a scarring half hour spent watching the Glamorous Granddad competition, there was nothing for him to do but wander around and feel sorry for himself. He was in the middle of a particularly vicious mental tirade against the house master who had convinced him to patch things up with his parents after the whole divorce debacle, when an escaped watermelon made an attack on his person.

“Over here,” a harried sounding voice called, and though it wasn’t in his nature to offer assistance, Rimmer was intrigued enough to say,

“It’s alright, I’ll carry it. You look like you’ve got your hands full.”

The man offered him a half smile, and lead the way down the narrow path towards the staff chalets. He couldn’t think of anything to say, and the other man didn’t initiate any conversation, so they walked in silence until they reached their destination, the man shouldering the door open and dumping his cargo onto the nearest table.

Rimmer followed cautiously, suddenly very aware of the fact his father had insisted all four of them wear the navy sandals and matching shorts, the ones with the military crease ironed into them. He put the watermelon down, carefully, and took in the bustle of what had to be the staff rec room.

Music was blaring, and when Rimmer turned he felt the flush spread across his cheeks, unbidden, at the realisation one half of the pair practising their dance moves was the man he had spent the better part of the previous night watching. They finished their run through and though Rimmer knew he really ought to be leaving, he couldn’t get his feet to co-operate, not as the man crossed the room towards him.

“Thanks for helping Rob with those.”

“It wasn’t exactly difficult,” Rimmer said in turn, because nobody just offered thanks about like that and meant it.

The man quirked a lop sided smile. “I saw you in the main hall last night. What’s your name?”

Part of his brain told him to lie, to say Porky Roebuck or Thickie Holden, because why would a complete stranger want to know his name, unless it was to report him for some misdemeanour or other? The rest of his brain, the parts too busy thinking about how very dark the man’s eyes were, had him stuttering out,

“Rimmer.”

Somebody sniggered, behind him, and Rimmer blushed still harder. He wasn’t at school now, of course he wasn’t supposed to give his surname.

“I mean, Arnold. Arnold Rimmer.”

He must look like a total and utter idiot, he told himself.

The other man just kept smiling, so it dimpled his cheeks, and held his hand out. “Lister. Dave Lister.”

Rimmer took it, after the briefest moment of hesitation, and answered the rest of Dave’s - Lister’s - innocuous questions with the bare minimum of blushing and stuttering.

“It was nice to meet you, Arnold,” he said when Rimmer finally regained the presence of his mind to excuse himself.

He could think of nothing else for the rest of the evening.

* * *

The early morning wake-up call came over the tannoy at 7:30am. His father had had them up since 6 for calisthenics and recital of the Space Corps Directives, so it was something of a relief when he was left alone while the others made their way to the breakfast hall.

He had confused Directives 39436175880932/B and 39436175880932/C and knew better than to push his luck by trying to accompany them. It wasn’t fair he told the mirror through the medium of glare as he attempted to brylcreem his unruly hair into submission. Howard and Frank had already been accepted into the Space Corps, and John was one of the Corps’ most decorated test pilots.

How was he supposed to be able to compete with that?

When they returned his father announced on the whole family’s behalf that they would be spending the day at the indoor swimming pool. It was almost a relief when he was pulled aside and told his presence would not be required. He had only been awarded his swimming certificates on the understanding that the instructor would never have to lay eyes on him again.

Left to his own devices once again he found a quiet bench to sit on and couldn’t stop his mind from wandering back to Dave Lister. To the man’s strange accent, and the way he moved out on the dance floor, like he didn’t give a smeg what anyone thought of him. It was an entirely novel concept.

He was so busy remembering the way his name sounded in Lister’s mouth that he near jumped out of his skin when he heard it for real.

“I didn’t see you at breakfast,” Lister said, dropping down to sit beside him. “I was looking out for you.”

Rimmer took in the way the normally neat uniform jacket looked crumpled on Lister. It was the way the man slouched, he decided. Aloud he said,

“I didn’t think you’d have to work the morning shift.”

“I was covering,” Lister admitted easily. “Some people have later nights than they should do, if you get my meaning.”

Rimmer blushed, and cursed the tendency. Would Frank or Howard blush at the obliquest mention of sex? Would John have ever done anything quite so ridiculous?

“So, what are you doing today? Where’s the rest of the family?”

“They’ve gone swimming,” Rimmer said, not wanting to admit to Lister that he hadn’t been invited, and now had absolutely diddly-squat with which to keep himself occupied.

They sat for a long moment, in silence, and then Lister was on his feet and looking down at him expectantly.

“Come on then, follow me.”

Rimmer frowned, suspicious. “What for?”

Lister only grinned. “I need someone to practice me steps with, and you look like you could use a distraction.”

* * *

“I don’t know how you’re going to be able to practice with me,” Rimmer said once Lister had gone and changed, and picked up a portable tape player. “I mean. You know.”

Lister just raised an eyebrow and Rimmer took a deep breath, shocked that he was going to have to actually say it.

“Two men can’t dance together. It’s just not done. Not unless it’s morris dancing.”

Lister laughed, a warm, happy sound that made Rimmer’s stomach twist.

“Tell me, Arnold, have you travelled much? Away from Io, I mean.”

“I went on a school trip to Macedonia once,” Rimmer said sniffily. He couldn’t see what Lister was getting at it.

Lister finished fussing with the tape player and took his hand, all soft warm skin, apparently oblivious to the tingling thrill it sent up Rimmer’s whole arm.

“Trust me, the rest of the galaxy doesn’t have a problem with it.”

After that, Rimmer followed Lister’s directions obediently, concentrating on the placement of his feet rather than the rapid pounding of his heart, and the excited, over eager, responses his body threatened to have every time Lister pressed them close together.

It might be alright on Mimas or Titan, or even here on Earth, but back on Io it was the kind of thing that made your family disown you, to openly display the wrong kind of reactions. To not have the good sense not to get into situations that might incite those kind of reactions in the first place. And still, he didn’t want it to end. Wished Lister’s guiding hands would never leave him.

They sat close when the blaring of the tannoy announced it was lunchtime, and Lister handed him a sandwich from a box Rimmer hadn’t even realised he had brought with him.

“It’s chicken tikka,” Lister said encouragingly to Rimmer’s uncertain expression, “it won’t kill you.”

It wasn’t awful, Rimmer conceded, and almost before he knew what he was doing he found himself taking up Lister’s conversational prompts, and spilling all manner of things about his life back on Io, and what he was hoping to do once he completed his course at Io Polytechnic.

“You don’t have to do what your father wants, you know,” Lister said eventually. “It’s you that’s got to live your life.”

Rimmer didn’t know how to answer.

It was late afternoon when they finally made their way back to camp, and Lister told him to wait in the rec room and then he’d walk with him up to the main site. He was doing just that, flicking through the endless unfamiliar names in the tape collection, when he heard Lister talking to someone, just outside in the corridor.

“Fraternising with the guests is off limits, you know that,” a female voice said, teasing, and Rimmer stiffened. Surely this woman, whoever she was, hadn’t been able to tell the inappropriate thoughts he had spent the day battling?

Lister just laughed, the same laugh that had so affected him earlier, and said, “What do you take me for? Just look at him.”

They both laughed then, and this time it didn’t make his stomach twist, it made it sink to somewhere around his ankles. He was an idiot, and if some girl he’d never met could tell instinctively that he was a laughing stock, well. It was only fitting.

* * *

He spent the next few days doing his best to avoid Lister. He wanted to deal with the humiliation of it all in his own way, by replaying it over and over, and wishing his parents really had just called it quits the day Frank was born.

Frank, for his part, tormented him mercilessly, deducing that he must have spent that fateful day mooning around after some girl who, quite rightly, wanted nothing to do with him.

“I’m sure Arnold will find a girlfriend one day,” Janine said kindly on the third night, after everyone had taken a turn listing all his many faults over dinner. “He’s just a late bloomer.”

Rimmer squirmed and fidgeted, unused to having anyone stand up for him.

“Late bloomer,” his father muttered, accompanying the words with an amused snort. “Very fitting.”

“I’ll pick you up a leaflet for the Love Celibates when I’m back at the academy,” Howard smirked. “It’s just your scene, Arnold.”

The others laughed, and even Janine hid a smile behind her hand. And, then, as though he wasn’t quite suffering enough, the compère announced yet another dance display, and the sight of Lister confirmed that he was surely doomed to a lifetime of sitting around eating quiche with a bunch of other sad, loveless losers.

Nobody protested when he excused himself for an early night, and Lister was the only person to stop him on his way from the hall, saying,

“You can’t be leaving so soon. I’ve been trying to speak to you for days. Why did you just disappear?”

Frank was watching, from across the room, and Rimmer only dared to hiss, “some of us have better things to do of an evening than shake our posterior,” before fleeing.

* * *

That night he tossed and turned for a long time, and when he finally succeeded in falling asleep he dreamed disjointedly of Lister, dancing, laughing, touching his hand. When he awoke, with a start, Lister had been on the verge of kissing him - and he had been more than willing to let it happen.

The memory of it kept accosting him all through his father’s early morning calisthenics drill, making his responses clumsy and heavy footed.

“You’ll never get into the Space Corps at this rate,” his father told him, making a note of something on the clipboard he carried for the occasion.

Lister’s words rang in his head, and though it was just about the stupidest thing he could do, it was his own voice which said,

“Maybe I don’t want to join the Space Corps.”

Frank broke into a coughing fit, at the shock of it, and his father just glared at him for a long, terrifying moment. Finally he stood to attention, gestured for his brothers to go and get ready for breakfast, and told him, tone deadly calm,

“I want you to think very carefully about what you’ve just said. If necessary,” the stress on the words said it had better not be, “we will continue this discussion tomorrow morning.”

With that he was dismissed.

He was trying and failing not to think very carefully about his outburst to his father when Lister found him, falling into place beside him.

“I was never any good with the cold shoulder treatment. You’re just going to have to tell me what it is I’ve done wrong.”

He wasn’t going to say anything. He was going to ignore Lister until he went away, and then put the whole sorry affair behind him.

“I heard you both, laughing at me.”

It was like his mouth had a mind of its own.

“What?” Lister asked, frowning as though he were trying to place the event. Rimmer felt justified when he saw the recognition in Lister’s expression. Lister shook his head. “We weren’t laughing at you.” Rimmer raised an eyebrow - he’d heard it! - but Lister went on, “We were laughing at me.”

“You don’t need to lie to me.”

“Krissie knows me too well,” Lister said bluntly. “She knows the kind of guy I go for.”

Rimmer felt sure he was gaping, helpless. He’d never heard it talked of, so openly.

Lister shrugged sheepishly. “Look, I know it’s a cardinal sin on Io, it’s alright. I wouldn’t do anything about it anyway. ‘S’not professional.”

He was relieved. Just relieved. There was no other emotion encroaching upon that.

“What did you want to talk to me about then?”

“I wanted to check you were alright,” Lister said, and his expression was so earnest it made Rimmer’s fingers ache to reach out for him. Then Lister seemed to shake it, whatever it was off, and added, “I’ve got to do a show at the Sheldrake tonight, it’s another holiday resort, not far from here. And the guy I’m supposed to dance with, he’s gone and eloped with a dentist from Surrey. I need a replacement.”

It took a moment for the information to sink in.

“I’m not a dancer.”

“You were picking it up easy enough the other day.”

“I can’t,” Rimmer shook his head, thinking of his father. “I just can’t.”

“I’ll keep the steps simple. I promise you I can teach you the full set by tonight.”

“Why can’t you ask someone else to do it?”

“They’re busy, and,” Lister met his gaze, “I’d rather dance with you anyway.”

Rimmer looked away, already knowing his answer.

He was in way over his head this time.

* * *

Lister was as good as his word, keeping the steps relatively simple, and ignoring the way Rimmer’s cheeks flamed when his hands went to Rimmer’s hips, to better explain the movement he was supposed to be copying.

The music was different this time around, more uptempo, less traditional. It was no surprise to Rimmer to learn that the management at Kellerman’s had put a blanket ban on it.

“I’ll never be able to do it,” Rimmer said at last, frustrated, and Lister just moved them back to the starting position and said,

“Stop thinking about it and feel the music.”

It was a ludicrous thing to say, you couldn’t feel music, but he tried his best all the same. He tried not to think about what his brothers would say, should they find out, or how stupid he would look, should he forgot what his feet were supposed to be doing. He even tried not to think about the confusing feelings Lister inspired in him, and whether or not the distance between them was sufficiently respectable.

Contrary to all his expectations it actually worked, he lost himself in the beat and the rhythm, and it was only when the song finally faded out that he realised how close he was to Lister, how he could feel the other man’s body heat, and the deceptive strength in the other man’s arms.

Lister was looking up at him, gaze fixed on his own, and one of them made a noise, half desperate. It must have been him, he supposed, and then he lost the ability to suppose anything at all because Lister was kissing him, fingers gentle where they reached up to caress his cheek.

Rimmer kissed back, ducking slightly to make the angle easier, and Lister swiped his tongue against Rimmer’s lips in appreciation. There were tongues involved on both sides then, and Rimmer clutched at Lister’s back, the intensity of it all making his legs unsteady.

“I shouldn’t be doing this,” Lister said when they broke apart for air and Rimmer, high on endorphins and adrenaline, only whispered,

“Please don’t stop now though.”

Lister was breathing heavily, expression torn, and if the crackle of approaching feet hadn’t necessitated their moving, right then, Rimmer was sure Lister would have given up on any attempt to be ‘professional’ for a moment longer.

* * *

They didn’t talk about it back at the rec room, or even in the bunk room Lister shared with one of the maintenance staff, Rimmer sat nervously on Lister’s bed as the older man changed and tracked down something suitable for Rimmer’s taller frame.

They didn’t talk about it on the way to Sheldrake, either, Rimmer’s stomach turning knots with anxiety about the upcoming performance and the awkward situation he had created for himself. He had liked being kissed by Lister. He wanted to do it again, he realised as they signed in and were briefed on the evening’s timings. At the earliest possible opportunity.

Then they were being announced onto the stage, the spotlight following, and it was all Rimmer could do to not be sick, let alone work out the proper response to his latest Lister related bombshell.

The surprising thing was that it went okay. Not brilliantly, but decently. Good enough for the audience to clap and the other staff to congratulate.

“I told you you could do it,” Lister said when it was over, and he had been made to down a couple of glassfuls of some kind of alcohol to cope with the rush of belated nerves threatening to floor him.

It had made him come over light headed and free spirited, and that was the only reason he reached for Lister’s hand when the car had come to a stop back at Kellerman’s.

“You’re drunk,” Lister said in answer. “And I’d lose me job.” The disappointment must have shown on his face because Lister went on, “It’s not that I don’t want to, honest.”

“I wouldn’t tell anyone,” Rimmer argued, stubbornly. “I wouldn’t expect you to want to keep in touch with me afterwards.”

Lister just stared at him, face fixed with an expression Rimmer couldn’t interpret. Finally he tugged at the hand his own was wrapped around, and pressed a kiss to his knuckles.

“It’s late. I’ll see you in the morning.”

* * *

His muscles ached in the morning, from all the dancing, and his head spun with a mixture of unaccustomed alcohol intake and the embarrassing knowledge that he had all but begged Lister to go to bed with him.

“You’d better move if you want any breakfast,” Howard’s voice hissed at him, the digital display on the clock in the corner of the room telling him that it was 5:47 and counting.

He sat up groggily, his gaze falling on the clothes he had borrowed the night before just at the moment Howard said,

“What the bloody hell were you up to last night then? Even you wouldn’t wear that to a hammond organ recital.”

“I -” he started, racking his brain for a believable lie. None proved forthcoming.

Frank stuck his head around the door, a knowing smile on his face. “A little birdy tells me you were up to something you shouldn’t have been yesterday. I expected better from you, Arnie.”

“You won’t tell father, will you?” He managed, his mouth so dry he could scarcely get the words out.

Frank just grinned at Howard, the way he always did before he made Rimmer’s life even more of a misery, and said,

“That all depends on what you’re going to offer us, miladdo. This would be a pretty big secret, wouldn’t it?”

By the time breakfast was over Rimmer had pledged away the bulk of his possessions, the money he had been saving all through his years at Io House, and most of his free time for the foreseeable future in order to perform any and every petty task his brothers could think of.

“It’s nice to see you four getting on so well,” his mother had the gall to comment, right before she announced she was going to spend the afternoon in the spa and did not want to be disturbed for anything. Janine announced, as she fixed her hair in the mirror for the twelfth time since breakfast, that she would be going with her.

His father, as a valued customer, had been invited to help oversee the final uniform inspection of the season, and after making him iron and re-iron military precision creases into their holiday underwear for the better part of an hour, his brothers finally lost interest and went out to do their own thing for a few hours.

He determined not to tempt fate, and sat twiddling his thumbs for all of three minutes before gathering up his borrowed dance outfit and setting out to find Lister. There was no sign of anyone in the rec room, and when he knocked timidly at the door of Lister’s room an unfamiliar face answered, and told him that Lister had confessed to pilfering from the guests, and had already been escorted from the premises.

“He wouldn’t have,” Rimmer stated hotly, in Lister’s defence, and the other man just shrugged.

“Hey, I don’t make the rules around here.”

This was it, he realised when the door shut in his face. Lister had awakened all manner of urges and desires within him, and now he was never even going to see him again. He had just been made to give away all his pristine books, with their dust covers and spine protectors, and he had never even touched Lister, not properly.

He left the clothes in the rec room, went and sat in the clearing where Lister had taken him that first day, and tried to make sense of the mess the last week had made of his life.

* * *

It was the last night of their holiday, and the last night of the summer season. His father insisted on personally inspecting their appearance before they left the chalet, delivering a lecture on the importance of proper grooming as he made his way down the line. His mother and Janine were let off lightly, of course, and his brothers were all waved off with a,

“Very good, see you keep it up, cadets.”

He was the only one held back and, though both the rack and the cane were safely back on Io, Rimmer felt like he was seven again, and about to feel he full force of his father’s displeasure.

“I trust there will be no repeat of yesterday’s madness.”

For a moment Rimmer was convinced that his brothers had told anyway, that he was about to have the choice taken away from him and be told he was now dead to the family. Then his father continued,

“The Space Corps is the pinnacle of human endeavour in this universe. Any real man would make it his life’s goal to serve it in any capacity.”

“Yes, Sir,” he agreed, and saluted. He wanted, needed, to be dismissed.

His father looked at his watch. “Move then. You’ll be late, boy.”

They ate dinner in relative silence. His mother glancing misty eyed at more than a couple of the male members of staff, and his father apparently mentally constructing some lecture or other. For his part Rimmer barely tasted the food. It didn’t seem to matter.

When the meal was over, the compère and the manager took to the stage, reminiscing back over a season well attended, and well paid for. Badges were handed out for various achievements won by members of the Under-12s club, and a bouquet of flowers was presented to the staff member guests had voted the most shapely.

There was singing, and stand-up, and even a man with a ventriloquist's dummy who lost his teeth halfway through his routine and then couldn’t get them to sit back in place again. Eventually, the staff dancers were brought out, and the migrating chairs and tables pushed back to clear the dance floor. Rimmer wondered if he could get away with excusing himself early again, or if his brothers would take the opportunity to hint too loudly.

He was going to do it anyway, he’d decided, when he caught a glimpse of a familiar figure from across the hall. It couldn’t be, he told himself. But it was. It was Lister, dressed in a London Jets shirt and a leather jacket, making a beeline right for him.

Rimmer knew he should do something. Run, hide, anything. But he couldn’t, just sat there stupidly and waited for the inevitable.

“I don’t believe this,” Howard said.

“Entertainment while you eat,” Frank commented.

“I was at your disciplinary hearing this morning,” his father said, eyeing Lister up like he was something smeared on his shoe, while his mother swept her gaze over him in undisguised interest.

Lister ignored all of them in favour of Rimmer. Distantly, Rimmer was aware of the opening bars of the song they had practised over and over again, the day everyone else had gone swimming, even as Lister held his hand out in invitation.

He couldn’t do it. Not in front of his family, his father. But Lister didn’t budge, meeting his gaze as though they were all alone and not in a hall full of people.

“Is this really the life you want?” Lister asked. “Sitting in the corner and pretending to be somebody you don’t even like very much.”

“You’ll stay in that seat if you know what’s good for you,” his father said, warningly, and suddenly Rimmer thought of the decree absolute hidden between the pages of his favourite stamp album. He was 18 now, and he’d finished school. There was no reason why he should keep trying.

His parents were never going to change their minds about him, no matter what he did.

Somebody, he was never sure who, gasped as he stood, and though he had thought Lister was going to drag him onto the dance floor, he actually dragged him out onto the deserted balcony before pulling him close against him.

“There’s way too much Ionian repression going on in there,” Lister said, by way of apology, and Rimmer responded by kissing him, trusting Lister to turn his own awkward movements into something mind blowing.

“What happens next?” Rimmer asked later, when they were sat side by side looking up at the stars.

Lister wrapped an arm around his shoulders. “Who’s to say? But, if you like, we could have a go at finding out together.”

It was crazy, impetuous, totally against everything he had ever been told he ought to want for himself. But, Lister had been right. He didn't want to go through life pretending to be somebody else on the off chance his parents might, one day, be proud of him.

Rimmer nodded and gave Lister a shy smile of his own. 

"There's nothing I'd like better."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As ever, feel free to chat / hit me with prompts over on Tumblr [@serenwib](http://serenwib.tumblr.com/) or Twitter [@falsteloj](https://twitter.com/falsteloj). :)


	12. Overstimulation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for the prompt: Lister gets trapped in the AR machine while using it for sex. Cue continuous forced orgasms. Bonus points if Rimmer finds him and watches/mocks for a while before helping.
> 
> Originally posted here: http://starbuggers.livejournal.com/317.html?thread=36925#t36925

It wasn’t an ideal situation, but then nothing about his life was particularly ideal. The great love of his life had left him, again, and Rimmer had returned from the dead to mock him about it at every possible opportunity.

Again.

Their supplies of curry powder were reaching dangerously low, might have to reduce curry night to only four nights a week levels, and he’d seen everything loaded onto the currently accessible vid rotation. Even _Eye on Io_ , and no amount of _Mujeres Mimas_ could quite purge the horrific memories of 'Spotlight on Stamp Collecting', and the in-depth coverage of the annual Ionian Risk championships.

Even Rimmer hadn’t protested at his decision to delete the entire series from the computer database.

So, he was left with two options: staring into space, literally, or having his brains shagged out in one of the AR machines. It might only be a simulation, but who cared? It felt real enough, and the mere mention of it made Rimmer twitch like he was having some kind of seizure. Rimmer’s OCD health and safety related meltdowns had become part of the thrill of the thing.

He was still revelling in the satisfaction of walking out on Rimmer mid-lecture as he tapped in the relevant commands and pulled the helmet on. He had only tried this game a couple of times but it had got the job done, so to speak, and he didn’t want to completely wear out his favourite cartridge.

An eternity of drifting through space was probably going to last quite a long time, after all.

It all started out promisingly enough. Melinda tottered in right on cue, all seamed stockings and too-tight blouse, and they’d barely exchanged more than twelve words altogether on the state of her shorthand before she was in his lap, and attempting to suck his tonsils out. Subtlety hadn’t exactly been the programmer’s top priority.

He’d scarcely managed to get the clasp of her bra undone when she worked her hand inside his boxers, and it was a sign of how desperate he was that he bucked up against her, as eager as a virgin with a couple of well mixed Ganymede Gigolos inside him. It was how Rimmer would react he thought from absolutely nowhere, and he really must have been desperate, because the thought did absolutely nothing to quench his raging libido.

If anything, it only gave greater purpose to the movements of his fingers. He’d show Rimmer how it was done, he thought as his fingers slid slickly inside of her. He’d let Rimmer watch, but not let him touch, until the git was so worked up he came in his pants, blushing and gasping and shivering.

He was going to regret it later, that much was a certainty, but in the moment Lister was content to let his imagination go for it. If Rimmer’s agonised whimpers of thwarted arousal were getting him off, then they were staying for the duration. It was that simple.

Melinda, as per her programming, really didn’t care what he was thinking about, and when she finally - finally - settled herself above him, using one hand to hold him steady enough to tease just the tip of his aching erection, he was so busy imagining the glazed look in Rimmer’s eyes that he couldn’t hold back his own whimper.

His hands found her hips, and Rimmer’s breathing had already grown strained and shallow, by the time he began thrusting into her in earnest. He wished he had thought to take his shirt off, the fabric sticking to him uncomfortably, and then he couldn’t really think of anything at all because his name was on Rimmer’s lips, and the rush of lust it sent through him was so powerful he had to concentrate on breathing, in and out, or it would all be over before he’d even started.

The breathing wasn’t helping, he conceded. He really shouldn’t have been so discriminating about inputting all his preferences. His mind’s eye supplied the look on Rimmer’s face, somewhere between startled and half wild, and his grip tightened on the simulated flesh, his thigh muscles quivering as he strained up against her, release washing over him.

He slumped back against the over sized office chair when it was over, ready to bask in the afterglow and not think about what kind of space virus might make the idea of Rimmer appealing. Except his body had other ideas. The tell tale tensing and tightening was confusing for a moment, and then it was all too obvious, his fillings aching from the clench of his jaw, even as his nerve endings threatened to liquefy into a sea of ecstasy.

That was weird, he just had time to think when it was done, before it was happening again. And again.

And again.

It went from novelty, to mind blowing, to agony in way less time than he would have thought possible. The human body wasn’t designed to withstand continuous orgasms. Not the male human body, at any rate, he thought, and he might have said - yelled - it aloud. He wasn’t exactly in control of himself, or his vocal chords.

Somebody had to be able to hear him, surely. Rimmer was bound to be lurking close by, with a freshly printed stack of risk assessment forms. _Rimmer_. His brain helpfully supplied his imagined image of Rimmer reaching his own climax, even as the game wrenched another from his own body, and it was too much. So much that he almost did himself permanent injury, what with the writhing and the squirming and the flailing.

He was going to die, he thought eventually. His heart was going to give out in one huge muscle spasm, and Kryten would be torn between keeping his boiled brain juice (which was surely dribbling out his ears) as a souvenir, and the urge to get busy with the disinfectant.

The Cat would complain that Lister had ruined the AR suite forever, because the stench of death would linger, and Rimmer. Well, it was all Rimmer’s fault in the first place. If he hadn’t turned up in Lister’s fantasy, the programme wouldn’t have glitched with the overload of surrealism and he wouldn’t be about to succumb to death by orgasm.

His last thoughts were going to be of Rimmer, and there was something very wrong with that, though he couldn’t figure out quite what, not as the next climax ripped through him. It was never going to end. It was going to go on and on and on -

And it was over.

It took a long moment before Lister could open his eyes, lashes stuck to his cheeks with a wetness he really hoped wasn’t tears. He attempted to sit up, to move, but his limbs weren’t answering his commands, and all he could do was wait for his blurry vision to focus and provide proof that he wasn’t dead. You could never be too certain, not in his experience.

What it did focus on sent a jolting after shock through him, or rather the aftershock and the sight before him coincided. That was the obvious explanation.

“You’ve really done it this time,” Rimmer said and, though the tone was pure smug smeghead, the flush staining his cheeks was uncomfortably distracting. “What a eulogy I could have written you. Death by third rate AR sex simulation. It would have made the history books.”

He wouldn’t have been the first, Lister tried to say, but his mouth was still outside of his control. He settled for glaring at Rimmer and tentatively flexing his fingers. At least it looked like he was going to be able to move again. One day.

Rimmer kept up a goitish commentary throughout his slow recovery, the look of outright glee on his face almost as disconcerting as it was irritating.

“It’s not that funny,” he snapped eventually, peevishly, when his jellified legs solidified enough to let him escape the nightmare.

It wasn’t until the middle of ship’s night that the question finally occurred to him, jolting him awake with the horror of what Rimmer might do with such information. The misery the man could inflict on him. The military history lectures, the engine room slideshows.

The risk strategy sessions.

Lister shuddered.

Just how long had Rimmer been sat there watching, _listening_ , anyway?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As ever, feel free to chat / hit me with prompts over on Tumblr [@serenwib](http://serenwib.tumblr.com/) or Twitter [@falsteloj](https://twitter.com/falsteloj). :)


End file.
